Chapter 49: How the Coin Lands
He woke up the following morning with a horrific kink in his neck and his leg half asleep, the nerves tingling back to life like ants crawling up his leg. Joey popped the vertebrae in his neck, sitting upright on the couch, moving the blanket aside so he could somewhat get feeling back into his leg. Admittedly, sleeping on a couch was not an ideal situation.
At least, not alone.
"So I'm guessing that you'll be staying here tonight?" Mai asked him, idly fiddling with a seam on his shirt as she curled up alongside him on the couch, her head on his chest. It was odd, how at ease she felt alongside him. A part of her wondered why they hadn't reached this point a long time ago.
"I guess, if that's alright with you. I don't exactly feel like sleeping in the room with the diesel engines," he had joked. "But I don't want to well, you know-" he then trailed off when Mai placed a finger to his lips.
"Relax, I not going to kick you out just yet. Besides, I think it'll be more entertaining to stay until morning, just to see everybody reactions," she had winked at him.
". . .You're a horrible person, Mai."
"Not that horrible." She slowly extracted herself from her very comfortable position on the couch, heading to the bed. She then tossed him a pillow, which he barely caught in time before it collided with his face. She began to pull off one of the blankets off the bed.
"Whatcha doing Mai?"
"Well, I'm not going to go to sleep without some blanket. Hotel rooms can get so cold. Here, catch." She tossed the wadded up blanket at him next, which he untangled. She wandered back to the couch.
"Your concern is touching," he remarked sarcastically just before catching Mai by the waist and pulling her back down alongside him.
"Gah! Joey!"
"Oh you stupid mound of hair!" Joey nearly jumped off the couch, startled. He craned his neck around to find Mai in front of the bathroom mirror, already dressed for the day, fiddling with her hair, still damp. Her towel was draped across her shoulders.
"Something the matter?" he called out.
She spun about, smiling slightly. "Morning sleeping beauty. Have a nice night?"
"I most certainly hope so. What's bugging you?"
"My stupid hair. I wanted to put it in a braid, you know, for the waves-"
"Uh-huh."
"And it's being uncooperative at the moment and it'll take too long to dry it."
"But you always have it down, why not today?"
"I felt like it. Can't a girl change it up every once in a while?"
He shrugged. "I'll never get women."
"Harumph. It's no wonder you haven't had a girlfriend until now," she teased.
"Well, maybe I was just waiting for the right one to come along," He replied, before blushing red and clamping a hand over his mouth. Mai froze as well and he could see the flush of red tainting her cheeks from the mirror. She coughed awkwardly, to break the moment.
"Normally, Vivian's around to give me a hand, but. . ." She went back to the mirror. "It's such a bloody pain to get it by yourself." After a few moments of fighting her hair, she decided to give up on it and let it air dry into wavy locks. "Fine, be that way."
"Didn't realize that you talked to your hair," he said with a smile.
The very next moment, Mai's damp towel collided with his face.
"Classy."
She gave him a saucy wink and his heart fluttered in his chest."I'm the very epitome of it," Mai said as she reached for the towel, lest he find some mischievous purpose for it. She took it from him and tossed it away onto the bed. The housekeeping would take care of it.
" Come on lazy bones," she ribbed while tugging him off the couch, knowing full well that he was more than likely enjoying the view and the moment. Sadly, as much as she wanted to stay with him, they both knew that at least for now, they had a job to do, more or less."You better grab your sword and get back to your hotel room before people get suspicious."
"I'd like to think they already are."
"Don't flatter yourself kiddo."
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She woke up with a sickly smell filling nostrils and with a shudder, Tea recognized it from a shadow game that seemed to have taken place ages ago.
Chloroform.
The last thing she remembered was opening the door to her hotel room in the middle of the night to Giselle and then she found herself here.
"Whatever here is," she told herself, scanning her surroundings. She was tied to a chair, her hands and feet firmly bound to a chair, as was her torso. The rough fibers of the rope chaffed horribly against her bare skin and she wished then that she wore longer sleeves, instead of the tank top and shorts she wore to bed that night. Tea made an attempt to wriggle her hands from the bounds but to no avail. They were firmly knotted. Maybe if she kept working at it, she could free them and untie herself.
She looked about, realizing that she was on a balcony of sorts, looking out into a plaza of sorts, like the one you would find in a hotel.
Except that this hotel had been completely destroyed by a fire. Tea guessed she was on the second or third floor, out of about five or six stories. High enough that she couldn't run without going down stairs and risk being recaptured. They were smart, whoever they were.
"Hello Tea." It was Giselle, smirking as she leaned against the rail. "Have a lovely nap?"
"It was you," Tea spat. "Yugi was right: you are up to no good."
"How perceptive of you," Giselle purred. "You're smarter than I expected."
"Ooh, if I could get out of these bonds. . ." Tea raged.
"Then where would you go?" Giselle asked coolly. "You're in a city you've never been in before and have no way about this place, let alone, find your way back to your hotel room. Recapturing you once again would be as simple as well, playing a simple card game." Giselle patted Tea on the cheek before giving her a peck on the forehead. She then pulled out a strip of white fabric. "Now, before I have continuously screeching in my ear during the entire duel. . ." Despite Tea's constant squirming, Giselle managed to securely tie the fabric about her mouth, effectively gagging her. "There, that's better, I think." Giselle began to saunter away, stepping over the pile of melted glass. "Oh yes, I forgot something." She spoke a handful of words in the language Dartz had used back on the island, summoning a pair of shadow creatures, exact replicas of the ones from Troy. "Now be good, before I decide to have the Orichalcos devour your soul early. Ta-ta, dear."
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He entered the lounge, where the continental breakfast table was set up, only to find that there was something "off" in the air. The look on Yugi's face said it all.
"Have you seen Tea?" Yugi asked him. "Serenity said she wasn't in the room this morning, and she left her cell phone behind."
Joey shook his head. "I haven't and that seems odd. That cell phone is practically glued to her. Why would she leave it behind?"
"That's the strange thing," Serenity told him. "I woke up this morning and Tea wasn't in the room, because she always does stretches when she wakes up. So I thought it was weird, but it was even weirder when I found her phone on the nightstand."
"That is odd," Joey remarked, sitting down in an available chair, worry etching his features. Despite having a biological sister, Joey had regarded Tea as another sister, one closer in age. She always managed to tolerate whatever inane and crazy schemes he conjured up, sometimes even going along, as long as it wasn't illegal, she told him once. For her to up and vanish like this. . .it was highly unusual, to say the least. He placed the sword on the table in front of him, one hand resting lightly on the hilt—he made it a personal mission to keep the weapon on him at all times, just in case. He thumbed the pommel stone, thinking. "And it ain't good either."
"What's worse, Giselle is gone," Tristan said. "Rebecca said that Giselle told her that she had to leave early in the morning."
"So do you think Giselle is involved?" Mai asked.
"That would. . ." Yugi trailed off. "No. Midas."
"What is it Yugi?" Marik leaned forward, concerned. "You know something, don't you?"
"I thought it was just a hunch. . .but I think that Giselle is working for Midas."
"That would explain those earrings," Ishizu remarked, recalling Yugi's conversation with Tea the other day. "She was disguising the Orichalcos stones as earrings."
"And the sabotaged breathing device," Joey added.
Mai turned to face him, anger flitting across her features at this. She wasn't upset at him, but rather, the woman who had the device. "The device was sabotaged?"
"Yeah."
"And her disappearance," Rebecca finished.
"Which means that this Midas guy now knows where the sword is, if Giselle is working for him," Aaron pointed out, one hand tapping the table next to Joey's sword. "And we found it for him."
"Hoo boy," Joey said quietly, looking down at the blade.
Just then, there was a ring on Rebecca's phone and she picked it up. "Hello?"
"Rebecca?" It was Tea, sounding groggy and frightened.
"It's Tea," Rebecca told them quietly, one hand over the speaker. Yugi reached over and snatched the phone from his friend's grip.
"Tea?"
"Yugi!"
"How are you? Are you okay? They didn't hurt you, did they?"
"I'm fine, I think. It's cold and dank here, and-" She was suddenly cut off.
"Hello Yugi, I didn't think that you and Rebecca shared cell phones." It was Giselle.
"Let her go!" Yugi snarled, fury crossing his features. "Tell Midas that his problem is with me, not Tea! You want me, not her!"
"You don't need to tell me, tell Midas."
"Midas? What did he do with this?"
"He arranged it, not me. He is the puppet master, I'm only the messenger." Giselle stopped. I'll tell you what: if you meet me at the-" Giselle quickly rattled the street names and numbers, "I'll let you have a chance to talk to Midas directly and maybe I'll let you get Tea too."
"Do you think that this is some sort of game!" He roared. "To sit there and gamble with my friends' lives?"
"The question is: do you?" She retorted. "Think about it little Yugi. No matter what you do, your friends always end up on the underside of Fate's coin, never winning, always losing. Pegasus, Marik, Dartz, The Spirit of the Ring. . .shall I go on? The point is that they're always casualties. I am merely taking advantage on how the coin lands. Maybe this time around you can make sure it flips the right way." She hung up the phone and he stared at it, stunned. How did Midas know so much about him, enough to list all the adversaries he faced off against all those years? It made him very uneasy. He mindlessly handed the phone back to Rebecca before speaking to them.
"We're going after Midas once and for all. Giselle told me that he wants to meet me. It may be a trap, so I will go alone."
"Whoa whoa whoa," Marik said. "You are speaking gibberish, right? Because there is no way none of will be willing to even think of letting you go meet this mad man by yourself."
"Seconded," Joey agreed. "Besides, if Midas tries any funny stuff, he's got this to face." He pulled the Sword of Renewal from the sheath. The hotel's lights caught on the rippled metal and it seemed to glow like the heart of a fire.
Yugi frowned, partially regretting the words he spoken. His companions and friends will follow him to the ends of the earth, if need be so to tell them that he wanted to go alone was merely inciting a rebellion of sorts. "If only you'll be careful."
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Cardiff was a large enough city, filled with hundreds of thousands of people, but they had little issue locating the building Giselle had said. It was an abandoned multistory building, nothing more that a hollow husk when a fire swept through it, gutting it. Apparently it was once a bustling hotel, complete with an extravagant indoor plaza, before an electrical fire obliterated its insides. They neared the building when Yugi sensed something wasn't right with Joey and Seto Kaiba. Both seemed to be on edge, Kaiba even more so, the man continuously massaging his hand. Joey had his hand clenched tightly about the hilt of the Sword of Renewal, as if trying to calm it.
"You sense something, don't you Kaiba?" Ishizu asked before Yugi could.
Kaiba scowled, displeased that he had been discovered when he spoke at last. "Yes."
Yugi, who had been leading the party, spun about catching his attention "Is it like at the ruins at Troy?"
". . .Admittedly yes."
"Then the Sword of Wisdom is here as well, or nearby, at the very least."
"That would explain why my sword's going nuts too," Joey removed the sword to make a point. The Sword of Renewal seemed to be quivering, the blade almost glowing with a quiet intensity.
"It seems like Midas is setting a trap," Aaron cautioned Yugi, hand going to the large knife he had strapped to his hip. Because of gun control laws in Great Britain, Aaron had left the weapon on Midas' private plane, stowed away in a safe place where it would take the officials hours to find even if they tried. "Designed to wipe out all three candidates of the Swords, if I were thinking like Midas."
"What should we do then?"
"Well, we simply outwit him. He expects Seto-"
"Call me Kaiba," Seto growled warningly.
"Sorry. Kaiba and Joey here to go after the sword to wipe them out while he deals with removing you from the picture. What he probably won't expect is for the pair of them to bring reinforcements, so to speak."
"You're suggesting that we split up," Ryou said, catching the gist of Aaron's plan.
"Bingo kid. We split up into two parts: one party goes with Kaiba-"
"Now you're doing it on purpose," Kaiba said.
"Who put ants in your pants? Anyways, some of us go with them, the rest go with you, to at least attempt to throw Midas and his little gal pal off guard."
"How do you suggest that we split up?"
"Some experienced duelists stay with Yugi, the rest go with Joey and Kaiba."
"I'll stick by Yugi," Tristan volunteered. "I'm pretty good in a street fight, but not a duel."
"Same here," Duke reiterated.
Joey faced Serenity. "Serenity, can you stay with Yugi? I don't want anything to happen to you."
Serenity nodded. "Stay safe."
"I will. Mai-"
"Don't you "Mai-" me," Mai told him. "I'm sticking by you. Somebody has to keep you out of trouble."
"I'll go with Joey and Kaiba too," Aaron saluted smartly. "You mind Captain?"
Yugi blinked at this. "Um, sure."
Eventually, they divided themselves up. Mai, Aaron, Ishizu, Marik, and Ryou would go after the sword, while Tristan, Rebecca, Duke, Serenity, Mokuba—under great distress-, and Sivya would stay behind with Yugi.
"Are you sure that you want to be with Yugi?" Marik asked Sivya.
"I am not a duelist so I would be nothing more than a hindrance to you," she replied. "I think I would be more helpful alongside Yugi." Suddenly, she reached out, giving him a tight hug. Marik, unsure of what just happened, froze, surprised. Then, as quickly as it occurred, it passed and Marik could not explain the flutter in his chest. "Be careful."
"I—I will."
Aaron snickered and Ishizu stomped on his foot, making him yelp in surprise.
"Okay then. Be careful." Yugi and friends began to walk towards the way of the hotel, as Joey, Seto and the others went in another direction, following Kaiba's senses.
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He peered through the crack in between the abandoned hotel's doors, the glass partially melted and cracked from the intense heat once upon a time. The residual stench of burnt plastics, wood and stone filled his senses, as if he had arrived the day after the fire occurred. "Seems quiet," Yugi said at last, before nudging it open with his foot. It creaked horrendously and he froze, heart nearly skipping a beat.
"Here." Tristan went past him, opening the door and checking for anything suspicious, such as any traps or whatever Midas had up his sleeve. He stuck his head in, looking about. "Nothing looks out of place, at least as far as I can tell. I don't think Giselle or Midas have any traps set."
"If anything, he'll try to sic some nasty looking Shadow creatures on us," Duke snorted.
Sivya tightened her grip on her staff, recalling the serpentine creatures she faced in Tel Aviv. "Really?"
"Don't frighten her," Serenity scolded Duke. "We don't even know what Midas is planning."
"Which has me nervous." Yugi slid past Tristan to lead the way inside. They passed through the front foyer, the potent scents heavy. Nearly everything had been destroyed, leaving nothing but empty shells. Tatters and pieces of plaster hung from the ceiling, while the former carpet under their feet was a veritable sea of melted plastic and carpet fibers. Slivers of glass crunched under their feet and Yugi was grateful for the boots he wore, lest it cut up his feet. They finally made their way into the very heart of the hotel, which looked like a ghost town more than anything. There had once been a small indoor garden in the plaza, judging from the ruins of the fountains and the bare skeletons of whatever trees and foliage had existed. The hotel was five stories tall, with a glass ceiling from which the pale summer sun, fighting through the dense layers of clouds, shone through, highlighting the ashes that still floated lazily in the air. There were no lights, for all the bulbs had shattered from the heat, casting huge swathes of the scape in shadow. The balconies were like the bare ribs of dying beasts, a graveyard of monsters forged of wrought iron. The sliding doors were slabs of melted glass and metal spread out and dripping, in some cases, through the bars of the balcony rails. The whole ambiance was eerie and unnatural in Yugi's opinion, sending shivers down his spine.
"I don't like the feel of this," Rebecca whispered to him, her voice seeming supernaturally loud in the silence.
"I don't like it either, but we have to do this." He activated his duel disk, the lights casting harsh shadows on the nearby terraces of burnt brick and skeleton trees, the low whir of the device filling the air with the sound not unlike the purr of a cat. Rebecca did likewise and Sivya readied her staff, ready to strike out at anything that seemed threatening.
"Well, it is about time you showed up." Giselle's voice seemed to come from all them, echoing in the empty halls and rooms. There was a bright light coming from a set of stage lights, set up all about them, in nook and crannies, on the lower balconies. Giselle emerged from across them, wearing a red dress with high slits and a long black cloak with a violet underbelly that past her feet, dragging behind her, shielding her bare shoulders. Upon her brow she wore a delicate circlet of interwoven silver, an Orichalcos stone the size of a quail egg nestled in the very center. She bore a black duel disk with gold highlights, in the silhouette of a dragon. Her eyes, once a murky jade, glowed like the irises of a panther, gleaming in the dark despite all the stage lights about them. She had all the airs of a dark queen, reborn from some wicked ritual. "I was growing impatient."
"Where is Midas?" Yugi said, pointing.
Giselle shrugged. "Midas was unable to make it. He sends his regards, as he is busy. . .with other business matters at the moment."
"She must mean Atem's sword," Duke whispered.
"Or the Library," Tristan countered.
"So you lied then," Yugi said accusingly.
"Do you expect anything less?" She asked him.
"What about Tea?"
"She's fine, at the moment." Giselle snapped her fingers and two more stage lights came on, highlighting a singular balcony high above. It was Tea, tied to a chair, her mouth gagged so she couldn't shout. Flanking her were a pair of the beasts like those from the ruins of Troy, all the way down to their oil slick coats and the unusually sloped skulls stamped with the Seal of Orichalcos. "As you can see, she's currently tied up, so she can't cheer you on. Maybe you'll be able to see her when both your souls are lost to the Seal of the Orichalcos. Unlike Midas' little assassin, Tabitha, my powers with the Orichalcos go beyond the normal. Allow me to demonstrate." She lifted both her arms up, eyes closed. The air thrummed with a unnatural energy, the magical powers of the Orichalcos sliding across their skin, raising goosebumps on their skin. The entrances and exits shimmered with a pale green curtain of energy, green electricity crackling and sizzling across them. The ground glowed under their feet and with horror, Yugi could see the runes of the Orichalcos appearing, not just in its typical ring, but all over the place.
"I don't recognize any of these," Mokuba said at last. "They don't look like the ones you normally see with the Seal."
"That's because they aren't normal runes," Giselle giggled manically. "You see, they're runes of entrapment, amplified and multiplied to make sure that none of you escape and try to rescue your friend up there. Also, should Yugi lose the duel, all of you, not just Yugi, will lose your souls, thanks to the connection you all share."
"Connection?" Tristan asked.
"Our friendship, I'm afraid," Yugi told him sadly.
"Now, let's see if the coin will land on the correct side, shall we?" Giselle said, turning on her duel disk.
Yugi took a deep breath before a smirk crossed his face, his violet eyes turning hard. "I'm afraid you picked your fight with the wrong person."
"How so?" Giselle replied, raising her voice to hide the slight tremor.
"I'm the King of Games." Yugi slipped his deck into the deck slot. "And nobody ever defeats me. No matter what you do, I'll win in the end and be one step closer to defeating your master, no matter what schemes, tricks or monsters dragged from the very depths of hell he conjures up.
"So, shall we duel?"
Yes, that was a reference to Season 0. I have no idea how to incorporate Season 0 fully into this verse, without utterly destroying parts of canon, but I'll find a way. Just pass me the duct tape and the CanonHammer, which I have dubbed just now. Excuse me while I go and trademark it.
Oh, and for those who noticed it, Giselle may or may not be bisexual; you can interpret it either way. Tea however, is firmly straight and NOT happy at the moment.
